Pete Carroll on injuries, punt returner, and more

Here’s the official transcript of what Seattle coach Pete Carroll had to say after practice today:

(On Anthony McCoy) Early indication is he hurt his other Achilles, if it is what they think it is it’s just a real heartbreaker. He worked so hard to get back. If it was the same Achilles you might understand it, but we think it’s the other one. We’ll see what happens.

(On if the injury is serious if it is what they think it is) Yes, yes it is.

(On James Carpenter) His calf tightened up a little bit so they just pulled him out early, same with Bobby Wagner. He had a hamstring thing; it just kind of tightened up. On the fourth day he got caught up a little bit with the soft tissue stuff.

(On Kevin Pierre-Louis) He’s got a little oblique thing that bothered him last practice. We’re hoping it’s not a serious deal but we want to make sure we don’t push him too hard or too fast.

(On the signing of Eric Winston) We were just looking for depth and a competitive guy to come in and fill the spot. We like the fact he’s got background and experience, we’re very young in the backup guys. Michael Bowie has been slowed down a little bit; we think he might get back tomorrow or the next day. It just indicated that we’d like to have another guy competing for the spot. Eric’s done a lot of playing in his time so we’ll see how that works out. I can’t tell you anything about how it went, but we’re glad to have him out here battling.

(On having ESPN at practice filming a live SportsCenter special) They just made a big pitch about it. They wanted us to do it. This is not like some of the other shows that people do; this is trying to capture what’s going on at practice. You know, I don’t mind that. We have people out here anyway watching, and we’re getting filmed anyway. Jon’s [Gruden] got such great expertise – along with Darren [Woodson] – that they could do a really good job of seeing it and presenting the picture. They were very open to how we would allow it to happen. We worked together to figure out a way, I don’t know how it came off but that didn’t matter to us. I wasn’t worried about it because it didn’t bother us at all, as long as they would do a nice respectable job. Of course they did, but you guys will know before I will.

(On newly signed Terrell Thomas, whom Carroll coached at USC) He’s a guy that we’ve loved from way back when. He’s had a fantastic career, been a great nickel player and a good, solid starter when he was starting at corner. He’s a real tough guy with a great attitude. He’s a great competitor, he plays smart. The fact that he was out there, we just thought, “Let’s bring him in and see what he can do for the competition.” So we cut him loose and gave him a chance to do it.

(On the health of Terrell Thomas’ knees) It’s always been an issue; he’s had three ACL’s. So at one time or another he’s been dealing with it. He’s done a marvelous job of getting back and playing. He’s in terrific shape right now – as good as he’s going to be in – he worked out really well yesterday so it just made sense to give him a chance.

(On O’Brien Schofield’s health) He’s okay. We just rested him today.

(On Justin Britt) Oh gosh, he’s making enormous progress. Today his matchups were all with Cliff Avril. We’re making it as hard on him as we can. He’s really smart, he’s really determined. He’s got a Russell-like approach in how determined he is to get this thing done. How far he takes it, I don’t know. He’s been given a great opportunity with Michael Bowie stepping out, he’s getting extra reps. He’s going to take advantage of it. We love the kid, so we know he has a chance because of that. Physically he’s fit, he’s 315 pounds or something and he moves his feet well. He’s right in the middle of it, he’s got a lot of stuff to learn and we’re going to try to bring him along as fast as we can. We’ll see what happens.

(On today being a hard day for him against Cliff Avril) Heck yeah it is, real hard. I don’t know how he did, but that’s as hard as we can make it on him and we will continue to do that as much as possible and he knows what the league’s tempo and speed is all about when we get playing.

(On Kevin Smith coming in late, looking at him after the draft) Yes. Well going into the draft we were aware of him, we watch his work out, really liked him and his toughness as a receiver and versatility and we didn’t get a chance to get him in free agency thing but we kept an eye on him and nailed him a little bit later.

(On Taylor Price) He just could not get healthy for us, and he needs some more time to get well and get right. He did a fine job for us when he was here but he just couldn’t get healthy and so we want to make sure we have good healthy legs running, we want to make sure we keep the rotations intact so we don’t wear down the receivers during camp, and he wasn’t able to go again so we had to settle with him and we’ll look into him later.

(On Byron Maxwell’s new role as starter) Maxwell did a fantastic job. Whenever we put him in he has done a great job and he really seized the opportunity last year when given the chance and just was competitive and productive as you could hope a guy to be and he was challenged a lot, obviously they’re going to challenge the guy on the other side of Richard [Sherman] and they did. He stood up to it, he handled the pressure of that really well and he comes back to camp with a lead shot to take that job but he’s getting chased hard now, he’s got some guys really battling for him so he’s got to have a great camp to hold his spot and that just makes us better.

(On Marshawn Lynch) We’re not commenting about it. He’s not here so we just can’t comment on any guy that’s not here right now. I love this kid and I hope he’ll figure it out and it’ll all make sense and it’ll come to a resolution but nothing on that.

(On Paul Richardson) He continues to show that he’s really, really fast and he can get up on you and he’s real comfortable catching everything that you throw at him. We’re real excited about Paul and hopefully we’ll just keep learning him and figuring him out and figure out how to best utilize his talents. He got talents; he’s really quick in and out of his breaks. I love his catching range so we’ll try to figure it out but we’re real excited right now.

(On punt returner job) It’s pretty wide open; because Earl [Thomas] has had the most reps so he would be the first guy to go but that’s it. From there, it’s all wide open. This will be a really fun competition for us to watch. I don’t know how it’s going to settle. We’ve got good candidates, Percy [Harvin] really chomping it a bit, he wants that job. The first thing you want in a punt returner is a guy that wants to do it real bad because it’s a difficult challenge job and both Earl and Percy are that way. I know Doug Baldwin is ready to jump in there too and Sherm wants his turns. It’s a good side competition that’s going on that we’ll watch all the way throughout camp.

(On Kevin Norwood’s foot) He’s going to jump back in either tomorrow or the next day. We’ve done a nice treatment. They’ve done a real nice process to get him back, we could’ve done him today but we’re going to wait another day. I’m hoping that tomorrow he’ll get back out and we’ll just see. It’s an old related injury to a previous surgery. So we’re just trying to figure out if we can solve the problem of it. He’s got a sore foot but there is nothing structurally wrong with it. He’s a tough guy. He wants to be out there. We’re holding him out right now.